Monday, 25 February 2013

Ethan Johns

He's well established as one of the
best producers in the business. Over the years Ethan Johns has lent
his talents to albums by Kings of Leon, Ryan Adams and Rufus
Wainwright. Now after 25 years in music, Johns is releasing his first
solo album.

What an awesome fucking beard.

Johns' golden touch saw him become one
of the most sought after producers around. In addition to his
abilities behind the mixing desk, he would very often play and
co-write with the artists he worked with. So it seems strange that,
at the age of 43, he's just releasing his debut album.

“It didn't seem like the songs were
anyone else's business” he laughs. “These songs somehow seemed to
want to be performed for other people. I don't really tend to have a
plan. I just go from one moment of inspiration to the next. I found
myself singing these songs to other people for some reason. That's
what they wanted”.

“I probably decided that it was
becoming a record during the making of it. The funny thing is that
I've been writing and recording my own material for 25 years. So it's
not like I woke up one day and went 'OK, I'm going to do a record
now', I've always recorded. It's just... something had changed at
some point. It's kind of hard to put my finger on what it was
exactly. Maybe it's because I was having fun”.

John's debut 'If Not Now Then When?' is
collection of gorgeous acoustic tracks that bear the hallmarks of his
past work, stripped down but concise and clear. In some ways it
sounds exactly like you would expect an Ethan Johns record to sound
and that's no bad thing.

With the back catalogue of classic
albums already bearing his name, Ray Lamontagne's Trouble and Ryan
Adams' Heartbreaker among them, it's easy to assume Johns may have
been feeling pressure with his name on the front rather than the back
cover.

“That thought had come up a lot. I
think it probably been mentioned by other people than come up in my
own head. Maybe subconsciously as a singer it was one of the things
that was preventing me. Ryan is an amazing singer, Ray is an amazing
singer. I'm not that kind of singer. I think that was one of the
things that was holding me back. I don't care now. The moment you
stop caring is when your true voice comes. You have no inhibitions,
there's no block between pure honest expression”.

Johns has been self-conscious about his
singing ever since he was a teenager, when the ravages of age put a
halt to a promising career as a choirboy. Now with the release of
this album, he's been able to return to something he loves.

“I hadn't enjoyed singing since I was
a boy. I sang in a choir up until when my voice broke and I loved
singing in the choir. It was one of the coolest things in life for me
at that time. And then my voice broke and I never really got over it.
I was gutted. I lost my technique, I lost control and rather than
work through it and discipline myself and learn how to sing again, I
didn't. I think that had a big impact on me actually. Now I've gotten
to a point where it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, because
I'm singing honestly. That was the big epiphany really, I sing the
way I sing, and so be it”.

Ethan is also the son of Glyn Johns,
one of the most acclaimed producers of all time. His father has
worked with an impossibly long list of music legends including The
Beatles, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones as well as more
recent acts like Band Of Horses. But while he acknowledges his
father's influence, Johns feels they are quite different as
producers.

“I had discovered my affinity for
music before I had any idea of what my father did for a living. It's
in my DNA if you like. I think there's no question that having him as
a father gave me opportunities and discover some amazing stuff that I
wouldn't have been able to had he been doing something else.

“I did end up learning a lot from him
as I got older. But at the same time I honestly think that I would
have been doing it regardless. We're pretty different though. There's
a lot of my Mum in me too. There's a side of me that's very different
from my Dad and that's what makes us so different as producers”.

With his record already released on
vinyl (his preferred format, obviously) and due to be released on CD
and digitally in February, Johns is set to go out on tour in 2013.

Still there's no danger that he will
turn his attentions away from producing. With so many gems in his
very prolific career, he can't pick just one album that stands above
the rest.

“I have to be inspired to work with
the people I've worked with. It's never been a job for me, it's never
been a career. I've only ever taken on projects that have been really
inspiring to me and that I've really wanted to do. Everybody I've
worked with, I've worked with for the right reasons.

“A lot of people talk about
Heartbreaker, a lot of people talk about the first couple of Kings of
Leon records. A lot of people talk about Ray and Laura (Marling). But
I've made a lot of records over the years and I'm proud of every one
of them”.